Utilitarian Objectivistic Pragmatic aproaches to the Gestalt of Aesthetics

Posted on February 24, 2009

I’ve disciplined myself towards a gestalt approach when considering the question of aesthetics. Like the aesthetics of the gestalt, within the school of architecture,  the demands of function dictate the product’s from.

Back in the fall of ‘96, I noticed that the content of a report I did in my Theatre History class could be applied to the demands of other projects from other courses. Humanities, history, writing, economics, science, logic, they all benefited from that one research report. With a little massaging, the message was made to fit the needs of every other medium. In fact, what I had realized was that each course was not asking me to deliver content, but exhibit mastery of a process: research, analysis, comprehension, and communication. This medium of process was the message, not the content, not the facts.

This lead me to discover what thousands before me had found: that there was a simple method, an obvious aesthetic standard to communications, a universal singular theory, hallowed by usage and consecrated by time.

I noticed that the same rules applied to all of the endeavors of man: interior design, architecture, fashion, painting, sculpture, media, music, religion, government.

Yes, Virginia, form follows function.

Allow me immediately to appear contradict myself:

I once performed a media transfer for a professor. He needed a series of EP cassettes converted to CD. They corresponded to a visual presentation stored on 35mm slides. He had already had the slides scanned and converted to JPEGs. His habit was to present them in a PowerPoint presentation to his class. So, all he wanted was an audio CD from whence to serve from a boom box he would port across campus. I couldn’t persuade him to use the computer’s media player to play the audio. He didn’t want me to cut and synchronize the audio to the appropriate slide in the PPT presentation. He kept and served the PPT presentation from an old CD-ROM. He could not understand my arguments for a USB HDD, or thumb drive, or network storage drives, or thin-client/web/cloud service. Furthermore,  I was unable to convince him to allow me to marry the audio and video into a single media file presentation. I understood all of this, it was a common defeat I would suffer from most members of his generation. But, what shocked me the most was not the medium difficulties, but the message.

He was using instructional media to deliver a lesson on advertising print communication. My problem with the content was it’s narrow concept of how to deliver messages to an audience. The program advocated – no, demanded, one layout and copy aesthetic standard for all messages, all products,  and all audiences. On and on, example after example it criticized photo and copy layout that didn’t contain enough information in an acceptably conservative manner. Surely, you don’t sell hot dogs and lingerie the same way you bark Cadillacs and condoms? Do you speak the same way to the audience that consumes your firearms as you would to the audience that dances in your leotards? Does the audience that needs life insurance even speak the same language as your customers that eat your Pla-doh?

Am I a hypocrite? No. What’s often overlooked is the realization that the message, the audience, the product, the time, the space, the venue, the medium, the politics, religion, history, language… all have aesthetic requirements to be considered when constructing a communication. In fact, these demands are not restrictions, but contribute to the very message itself. The function demands a specific form. Even though they bear many similarities, you don’t build the same kitchen or uniform for a soldier in the army that you would for a soldier in the Salvation Army.

The copy and layout program didn’t cover guerrilla marketing, of course. That concept would have given them apoplectic fits.

I once worked for a director who hated handheld camera work. Against all of the argumentsof his peers and colleagues, he never would admit to having seen it aptly applied. Never could understand its potential contribution.

I’ve known media professionals who could only work in one medium. The TV guy couldn’t do film, the film guy could only do horror, the actor only did plays, the musician couldn’t freestyle jam, the director couldn’t work without a shot list or storyboards, the fight choreographer couldn’t block a dance. Some of these examples constitute a small leap forward or sideways within the same skill set. Others require applying utilities towards mediums they were not originally designed for. But, creativity is finding new applications for old tools. A bucket is a drum once you bang on it, and a canvas is blank until you…

The only concrete rule I have concerns the vulgarities. But, your use of archetypal communication standards can transcend the more common reference devices that will die or be co-opted or suffer etymological complete polar shifts of definition: metaphor, vernacular, idioms, axiom, myths, legends, urban tall tales, analogy of slang. They’re useful, but date the piece. Keep it classy.

I’ve worked in steel, PVC, dirt, tempera, emulsion, pixels, bits, electrons, bass notes, and humors. The mediums differ slightly only by degrees and dimensions but the basic aesthetic tools of communication remain the same: short simple declarative statements, moderate use of metaphors, strong use of  descriptive analogies, three to five point paragraph structure, three to five act story structure, varying use of contrast, polar shifts, hamartia, hubris, perepeteia, aristeia, anagnorisis, can you improve upon the methods that made Shakespeare and Aristophanes famous?

Maybe, that’s what artists strive for in experimentation. But, master the classic forms first, then get creative.

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